5 Types of Content That Can Mess With Your SEO

The close ties between content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are obvious and unsurprising in hindsight. Google has always stated that the best way to achieve impressive search engine rankings is to provide the end user with valuable, relevant content.

Conversely, there are a few types of content that can have an undesired effect on your ranking efforts.

Here are a few examples of content you’ll want to avoid.

Content that’s unoriginal. This issue is often observed with ecommerce stores, or with websites that have a lot of individual product pages. It’s easier to use a template on each product page, rather than writing product descriptions from scratch. However, Google doesn’t really like duplicate content and the more you have on your pages, the more it dilutes your SEO efforts. If you feel like it’s a tough effort, you can work with a professional content writing team that will create original text for each of your products or services.

Thin content. There is no particular word count for achieving Google success with your content, and sometimes it’s better to opt for short and concise. However, keep in mind that the end goal should always be to provide valuable information. For most topics, 100 words probably won’t be enough to send a compelling message. If your content is short and lacking in real substance, Google may not assign it much credibility.

Misleading content. Simply put, the bait-and-switch technique never works. Your content needs to deliver on what its title suggests. If your post is titled 5 Ways to Save Money on Your Next Trip, it should provide the reader exactly that.

Fill-in content. If you are just repeating the same thing over and over again because you think your blog needs to have 800 words in it, that hardly provides additional value to the reader, and it doesn’t align with Google’s interests and goals.

Content that’s hard to read. Finally, don’t forget who you are writing for and how is your readers’ experience when going through the content. Your content needs to be relevant and informative, but also easy to read. This means properly utilizing section subheadings, lists, bullet points, and small paragraphs. Leave enough white space to make it easy on the eye.